single or grouped gravestones that represent a distinctive folk
tradition;

graves or graveyards whose survival is a significant or the only
reminder of an important person, culture, settlement, or event;
and

burial places whose location, grave markers, landscaping, or other
physical attributes tell us something important about the people
who created them.

The Crawford-Dorsey
House and Cemetery near Lovejoy, Georgia, represent a Historic
Southern plantation; the earliest graves are covered by seashells.
(James R. Lockhart, 1983)

Examples of these and many other types of burial places appear throughout
this bulletin, especially in the section on applying the criteria. Some
types of burial places represent events, customs, or beliefs common
to many cultures, locations, or time periods. Others are unique representatives
of specific people or events. Background information on some of the
traditions in American burials that are so common that numerous examples
have been, or are likely to be, identified and nominated is discussed
briefly in this section; the omission of other traditions or historical
developments should not be interpreted as precluding cemeteries or graves
that do not fit into the topics that are included. For example, community
cemeteries that reflect early settlement or various aspects of an area's
long history may not fall into one of the traditions described in this
section. Yet they frequently are nominated and listed in the National
Register.

Native American Burial Customs

Native American burial customs have varied widely, not only geographically,
but also through time, having been shaped by differing environments,
social structure, and spiritual beliefs. Prehistoric civilizations
evolved methods of caring for the dead that reflected either the seasonal
movements of nomadic societies or the lifeways of settled communities
organized around fixed locations. As they evolved, burial practices
included various forms of encasement, sub-surface interment, cremation,
and exposure. Custom usually dictated some type of purification ritual
at the time of burial. Certain ceremonies called for secondary interments
following incineration or exposure of the body, and in such cases,
the rites might extend over some time period. Where the distinctions
in social status were marked, the rites were more elaborate.

The Plains Indians and certain Indians of the Pacific Northwest commonly
practiced above-ground burials using trees, scaffolds, canoes, and
boxes on stilts, which decayed over time.

More permanent were earthen constructions, such as the chambered
mounds and crematory mounds of the Indians of the Mississippi River
drainage. In some areas of the Southeast and Southwest, cemeteries
for urn burials, using earthenware jars, were common.

After contact with European Americans, Native American cultures adopted
other practices brought about by religious proselytizing, intermarriage,
edict, and enforcement of regulations. The Hopi, Zuni, and other Pueblo
peoples of Arizona and New Mexico were among the first to experience
Hispanic contact in the 16th century, and subsequently, their ancestral
lands were colonized. At the pueblos stone and adobe villages where
Roman Catholic missions were established, burials within church grounds
or graveyards consecrated in accordance with Christian doctrine were
encouraged for those who had been converted to the faith. However,
Native Americans also continued their traditional burial practices,
when necessary in secret.

Throughout the period of the fur trade in the North Pacific, beginning
in the late 18th century, Russian Orthodox missions were established
among the native populations settled along the coastline and mainland
interior of Russian-occupied Alaska. At Eklutna, a village at the
head of Cook Inlet, north of Anchorage, an Athabascan cemetery adjacent
to the 19th century Church of St. Nicholas (Anchorage Borough - Census
Area), illustrates continuity of a burial custom widely recorded in
historic times, that of constructing gable-roofed wooden shelters
over graves to house the spirit of the dead. In the cemetery at Eklutna,
the spirit houses are arranged in regular rows, have brightly-painted
exteriors fronted by Greek crosses, and are surmounted by comb-like
ridge crests. In this particular example, variation in the size of
the shelters is an indication of social status, while clan affiliations
are identified by color and by the styling of the crest.

Colonial and Early American Burial Customs

The earliest episodes of Spanish, French, and English settlement
on the eastern shore of North America followed voyages of exploration
in the 16th century. The original attempts at colonizing were made
in Florida, the Carolinas, and Virginia. In 1565, the first lasting
European community was established by the Spanish on the east coast
of Florida, at St. Augustine, which survived attack from competing
forces in colonization of the New World. An essential feature of the
fortified settlement was the Roman Catholic mission church with its
associated burial ground. Where they are uncovered in the course of
modern day improvement projects, unmarked burials of the 16th and
17th centuries provide evidence for identifying the historic locations
of successors to the founding church sites that gradually disappeared
in the layerings of later town development. The archeological record
shows shroud-wrapped interments were customary in the city's Spanish
Colonial period. Traces of coffins or coffin hardware do not appear
in Colonial burials before the beginning of English immigration to
the area in the 18th century. Graves of the Spanish colonists occurred
in consecrated ground within or adjacent to a church. They followed
a pattern of regular, compact spacing and east-facing orientation.
These characteristics, together with arms crossed over the chest and
the presence of brass shroud pins are a means of distinguishing Christian
burials from precolonial Native American burials sometimes associated
with the same site.

With the notable exception of the secular graveyards of Puritan New
England, the ideal during the Colonial period in English colonies
was to bury the dead in churchyards located in close proximity to
churches. Churchyard burials have remained standard practice into
the 20th century for European Americans and other cultures in the
Judeo-Christian tradition. Early Puritans rejected churchyard burials
as they rebelled against other "papist" practices, as heretical and
idolatrous. Instead, many 17th century New England towns set aside
land as common community burial grounds. Headstone images from this
period also reflect the rejection of formal Christian iconography
in favor of more secular figures, such as skulls representing fate
common to all men.

In areas such as the Middle Atlantic region and the South, settlement
patterns tended to be more dispersed than in New England. Although
early towns such as Jamestown established church cemeteries, eventually
burial in churchyards became impractical for all but those living
close to churches. As extensive plantations were established to facilitate
the production of large scale cash crops, such as tobacco, several
factors often made burial in a churchyard problematical: towns were
located far apart, geographically large parishes were often served
by only a single church, and transportation was difficult, the major
mode being by ship. The distance of family plantations from churches
necessitated alternative locations for cemeteries, which took the
form of family cemeteries on the plantation grounds. They usually
were established on a high, well-drained point of land, and often
were enclosed by a fence or wall. Although initially dictated by settlement
patterns, plantation burials became a tradition once the precedent
was set. Along with the variety of dependencies, agricultural lands,
and other features, family cemeteries help illustrate the degree of
self-sufficiency sustained by many of these plantations. Pruitt Oaks,
Colbert County, Alabama, is one of many National Register examples
of such a plantation complex.

Origins of the "Rural" Cemetery Movement

Mount Auburn Cemetery
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a model for suburban landscaped
cemeteries popular in the 19th century. Mount Auburn and other
"rural" cemeteries of its kind inspired a movement for public
parks. (Photographer unknown; ca. 1870. From the collection
of the Mount Auburn Cemetery Archives.)

In the young republic of the United States, the "rural" cemetery
movement was inspired by romantic perceptions of nature, art, national
identity, and the melancholy theme of death. It drew upon innovations
in burial ground design in England and France, most particularly Père
Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, established in 1804 and developed according
to an 1815 plan. Based on the model of Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded
at Cambridge, near Boston by leaders of the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society in 1831, America's "rural" cemeteries typically were established
around elevated viewsites at the city outskirts. Mount Auburn was
followed by the formation of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia
in 1836; Green Mount in Baltimore, 1838; Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn
and Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, in 1839; and ultimately
many others.

After the Civil War, reformers concerned about land conservation
and public health agitated for revival of the practice of incineration
and urn burial. The cremation movement gathered momentum rapidly around
the turn of the century, particularly on the west coast, and resulted
in construction of crematories in many major cities. Columbariums
and community mausoleums were erected in cemeteries to expand the
number of burials which could be accommodated with the least sacrifice
of ground space.

Perpetual care lawn cemeteries or memorial parks of the 20th century
represent a transformation of the "rural" cemetery ideal that began
in the last half of the 19th century. At Spring Grove Cemetery in
Cincinnati (Hamilton County), Ohio, superintendent Adolph Strauch
introduced the lawn plan system, which deemphasized monuments in favor
of unbroken lawn scenery, or common open space. Writing in support
of this concept and the value of unified design, fellow landscape
architect and cemetery engineer Jacob Weidenmann brought out Modern
Cemeteries: An Essay on the Improvement and Proper Management of Rural
Cemeteries in 1888. To illustrate his essay, Weidenmann diagrammed
a variety of plot arrangements showing how areas could be reserved
exclusively for landscaping for the enhancement of adjacent lots.

"Modern" cemetery planning was based on the keynotes of natural beauty
and economy. Whereas 19th century community cemeteries typically were
organized and operated by voluntary associations which sold individual
plots to be marked and maintained by private owners according to individual
taste, the memorial park was comprehensively designed and managed
by full-time professionals. Whether the sponsoring institution was
a business venture or non-profit corporation, the ideal was to extend
perpetual care to every lot and grave. The natural beauty of cemetery
sites continued to be enhanced through landscaping, but rolling terrain
was smoothed of picturesque roughness and hilly features. The mechanized
equipment required to maintain grounds efficiently on a broad scale
prompted standardization of markers flush with the ground level and
the elimination of plot-defining barriers.

The "Rural" Cemetery Movement and its Impact on American Landscape
Design

The "rural" cemetery movement, influenced by European trends in gardening
and landscape design, in turn had a major impact on American landscape
design. Early in the 19th century, the prevailing tradition was the
romantic style of landscape gardening which in the previous century
the English nobility and their gardeners had invented using classical
landscape paintings as their models. English garden designers such
as Lancelot "Capability" Brown, William Kent, Sir Uvedale Price, Humphrey
Repton and John Claudius Loudon artfully improved vast country estates
according to varying aesthetic theories. To achieve naturalistic effects,
gracefully curving pathways and watercourses were adapted to rolling
land forms. Contrast and variation were employed in the massing of
trees and plants as well as the arrangement of ornamental features.
The "picturesque" mode of 18th century landscaping was characterized
by open meadows of irregular outline, uneven stands of trees, naturalistic
lakes, accents of specimen plants and, here and there, incidental
objects such as an antique statue or urn on a pedestal to lend interest
and variety to the scene.

The "rural" cemeteries laid out by horticulturists in Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and New York in the 1830s were romantic pastoral landscapes
of the picturesque type. Planned as serene and spacious grounds where
the combination of nature and monuments would be spiritually uplifting,
they came to be looked on as public parks, places of respite and recreation
acclaimed for their beauty and usefulness to society. In the early
"rural" cemeteries and in those which followed their pattern, hilly,
wooded sites were enhanced by grading, selective thinning of trees,
and massing of plant materials which directed views opening onto broad
vistas. The cemetery gateway established separation from the workaday
world, and a winding drive of gradual ascent slowed progress to a
stately pace. Such settings stirred an appreciation of nature and
a sense of the continuity of life. By their example, the popular new
cemeteries started a movement for urban parks that was encouraged
by the writings of Andrew Jackson Downing and the pioneering work
of other advocates of "picturesque" landscaping, most particularly
Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who collaborated in the design
of New York City's Central Park.

With the rapid growth of urban centers later in the 19th century,
landscape design and city planning merged in the work of Frederick
Law Olmsted, the country's leading designer of urban parks. Olmsted
and his partners were influential in reviving planning on a grand
scale in the parkways they created to connect units of municipal park
systems. Although Olmsted was more closely tied to the naturalistic
style of landscape planning, his firm's work with Daniel H.Burnham
in laying out grounds for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
in Chicago conformed to the classical principles of strong axial organization
and bilateral symmetry. The central unifying element of the imposing
exposition building group was a lengthy concourse, a lagoon, terminated
by sculptural focal points at either end. Following the Chicago World's
Fair, civic planning was based for some time on a formal, monumental
vision of "the City Beautiful."

The historic relationship of cemetery and municipal park planning
in America is well documented in Park and Cemetery, one of the earliest
professional journals in the field of landscape architecture. Inaugurated
in Chicago in 1891 and briefly published as The Modern Cemetery, a
title that was resumed in 1933, the journal chronicles the growth
of an industry and indicates the developing professionalism within
related fields. For example, the Association of American Cemetery
Superintendents was organized in 1887. Cemetery superintendents and
urban park officials held a common interest in matters of design as
well as horticulture and practical groundskeeping.

The tradition of naturalistic landscape design that was developed
by Olmsted and his followers continued into the 20th century. Widely
influential was the work of John C. Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted,
Jr., successors of the elder Olmsted and principals of the Olmsted
Brothers firm which was consulted throughout the country on matters
of civic landscape design. But after 1900, parks and cemeteries took
on aspects of formal landscape planning made fashionable by the "City
Beautiful" movement and renewed interest in formal gardens of the
Italian style. Typically, classical formality was introduced to early
20th century cemetery landscapes in the axial alignment of principal
avenues of approach centered on building fronts, and also in cross
axes terminated by rostrums, exedras, and other focal features drawn
from various traditions in classical architecture. By the 1930s, newer
cemeteries and memorial parks showed the influence of modernism in
a general preference for buildings and monuments that were stripped
of excessive decoration. Greek architecture, admired for its purity
and simplicity, was the approved model for monumentation in the early
modern age.

Military Cemeteries

Military cemeteries, created for the burial of war casualties, veterans,
and their dependents are located in nearly every State, as well as
in foreign countries, and constitute an important type of American
cemetery. There are over 200 cemeteries established by the Federal
government for the burial of war casualties and veterans. These include
national cemeteries, post cemeteries, soldiers' lots, Confederate
and Union plots, American cemeteries overseas, and other burial grounds.
Many States also have established veterans cemeteries. The majority
of veterans, however, likely are buried in private and community cemeteries,
sometimes in separate sections reserved for veterans.

During the American Revolution, soldiers were buried in existing
burial grounds near the place of battle. One of the earliest types
of organized American military cemetery was the post cemetery. Commanders
at frontier forts of the early-to-mid 19th century buried their dead
in cemetery plots marked off within the post reservations. Post cemetery
registers reveal a fairly uniform system of recording burials, sometimes
even including assigned grave numbers. Management of burial grounds
fell to quartermaster officers. In 1850, the U.S. Congress called
for the establishment of a cemetery outside Mexico City for Americans
who died in the Mexican War. This was a precedent for the creation
of permanent military cemeteries over a decade before the creation
of a national cemetery system.

During the Civil War, there was a critical shortage of cemetery space
for large concentrations of troops. At first, this need was addressed
through the acquisition of lots near general hospitals, where more
soldiers died than in battle. As the war continued, however, it was
clear that this was not an adequate solution. In 1862, Congress passed
legislation authorizing the creation of a national cemetery system.
Within the year, 14 national cemeteries were established. Most were
located near troop concentrations, two were former post cemeteries,
one was for the burial of Confederate prisoners and guards who died
in a train accident, and several were transformed battlefield burial
grounds. By the end of 1864, 13 more had been added. Two of the best
known of the national cemeteries from the Civil War period are Arlington
National Cemetery, established in 1864, and Andersonville, established
in 1865. Arlington, the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee
at the beginning of the Civil War, was confiscated by the Union army
in May of 1861. In 1864, on the recommendation of Brig. Gen. Montgomery
C.Meigs, Quartermaster General of the Army, the grounds officially
became a national cemetery. Andersonville became the final resting
place of almost 13,000 soldiers who died there at the Confederate
prisoner of war camp.

The National Cemetery
Section of Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky,
includes burials of Union and Confederate soldiers, and veterans
of the Spanish-American War. (Lexington Herald-Leader,
1958)

The establishment of Civil War-era military cemeteries often resulted
from decisions by local commanders or by State civil authorities in
conjunction with private associations. Burial grounds were established
near battlefields, military posts, hospitals, and, later, veterans
homes. Before the creation of the National Cemetery System, these
burial grounds were referred to variously as national cemeteries,
soldiers' lots, Confederate plots, Union plots, and post cemeteries.
Many later were absorbed into the National Cemetery System.

Immediately after the Civil War, an ambitious search and recovery
program initiated the formidable task of locating and reburying soldiers
from thousands of scattered battlefield burial sites. By 1870, over
90 percent of the Union casualties 45 percent of whose identity were
unknown were interred in national cemeteries, private plots, and post
cemeteries. In 1867, Congress directed every national cemetery to
be enclosed with a stone or iron fence, each gravesite marked with
a headstone, and superintendent quarters to be constructed. Although
many national cemeteries contain Confederate sections, it was not
until 1906 that Congress authorized marking the graves of Confederates
who had died in Federal prisons and military hospitals. The post-Civil
War reburial program also removed burials from abandoned military
post cemeteries, particularly those in the western frontier, for interment
into newly-created national cemeteries.

Following World War I, only 13 percent of the deceased returned to
the United States were placed in national cemeteries; 40 percent of
those who died were buried in eight permanent American cemeteries
in Europe. Similarly, after World War II, 14 permanent cemeteries
were created in foreign countries. Today, there are 24 American cemeteries
located outside the United States, which are administered by the American
Battle Monuments Commission.

Until 1933, the War Department administered most military cemeteries.
That year an executive order transferred 11 national cemeteries near
national military parks or battlefield sites already under the jurisdiction
of the National Park Service to that agency. Today, the National Park
Service administers 14 national cemeteries. Originally, hospital military
cemeteries associated with former National Homes for Disabled Volunteer
Soldiers and former Veterans Bureau (later Veterans Administration)
hospital reservations were not part of the national cemetery system.
In 1973, the Department of the Army transferred 82 of the 84 remaining
national cemeteries to the Veterans Administration today the Department
of Veterans Affairs which had been created in 1930 from the merging
of the National Homes and Veterans Bureau. Also in 1973, the 21 existing
"VA" hospital cemeteries were recognized as part of the National Cemetery
System. The system has continued to expand, and there now are 114
national cemeteries managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs,
where more than two million Americans including veterans from all
of the country's wars and conflicts from the Revolutionary War to
the Persian Gulf are buried.

The total number of military and veterans burial places in the United
States is unknown because there are numerous veterans plots in private
and non-Federal public cemeteries. In 1991, 70 percent of the markers
provided by the Federal government to mark new gravesites were delivered
to private or State cemeteries, and the remainder to national cemeteries.